Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Boghossian's "Manual for Creating Atheists," Part 3

It’s time
to suffer through the last of what we have from Peter Boghossian’s Manual for
Creating Atheists.

Chapter 8
is on “Faith and the Academy” and is mostly Boghossian summing up the sort of
allies he thinks he can pick up at universities and schools. Apart from more
badly informed definitions of “faith” there’s nothing of note here. The
interventions are just a couple of low hanging fruit and not much else.

Chapter 9 starts
with the same wrong definition of “faith” and then proceeds to give advice on
how to use it and deal with it. This includes mockery, picketing crusades, and
political action. Here’s one Boghossian missed:

12. If you run into someone who
defines “faith” in terms of Greco-Roman patronage, run like Jesus is chasing
you!

But
otherwise, it’s just Boghossian assuming he’s right and giving advice on how to
implement his program of being right. And that’s pretty much it.

In close,
we have gotten word that Boghossian is starting his own TV show where he
“ambushes” people at churches on camera to make them drop their faith. In that
regard, we’re reminded of how Brian Flemming pulled the same trick in The God
Who Wasn’t There. You have to wonder why Boghossian doesn’t try his little
tricks stopping by a seminary, or by Richard Swinburne’s office.

Well, no,
actually, you don’t have to wonder. It’s pretty clear why he doesn’t do that. Low hanging fruit won't crush him when it drops.